Noze Inc.
Development of high-resolution, scalable silicon aroma sensor for healthcare applications
Project
This project accelerates the transition of Noze’s Silicon Aroma Chip (SiAC64) from a validated clinical prototype to a high-volume, commercial-grade medical device. While Noze’s technology has already demonstrated the ability to detect complex molecular signatures in breath, unlocking the promise of non-invasive screening for conditions such as tuberculosis, breast cancer, and asthma, this project focuses on industrializing the sensor for global market entry.
To meet the requirements of active commercial partners, the project is optimizing the SiAC64 for mass-market deployment through several key pillars:
- Miniaturization & Cost-Efficiency: Evolving from lab-scale microfabrication to a compact, scalable architecture optimized for seamless integration into point-of-care devices.
- Industrial-Grade Manufacturing: Transitioning from research-grade sensor micro-deposition to a standardized, high-yield production process designed to deliver consistent performance at scale.
- Advanced Hardware Integration: Utilizing sophisticated microfabrication techniques, including vertical interconnects, to integrate 64 unique, chemically sensitive nano-composite thin films into a dense, high-performance footprint.
- Strategic Production Partnership: Collaborating with Teledyne MEMS to leverage their world-class Edmonton foundry for advanced chip fabrication, packaging, and rigorous quality-controlled production.
Through this work, Noze is elevating its core technology to medical-grade, enabling breath-based diagnostics to scale across decentralized care settings, from clinics to pharmacies, and delivering real-time health intelligence to partners.
Building Canadian capacity
Developing and commercializing new advanced sensor and semiconductor products targeting the growing healthcare IoT market builds domestic capacity.
Noze’s collaboration with Teledyne keeps the design, intellectual property, and production work in Canada. In addition to reducing dependence on foreign supply chains, the partnership builds domestic expertise in advanced semiconductor and MEMS manufacturing. The underlying MEMS architecture also possesses significant dual-use potential for national defence.
Noze’s Silicon Aroma Chip offers both health and economic benefits. It could bring testing to rural and remote communities, lower the cost of care, and create high-value jobs, while also opening new markets in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and continental Europe.
“This funding marks a pivotal inflection point as we scale into commercial production. By miniaturizing the sense of smell onto a single silicon chip, we will be enabling lab-grade diagnostic capabilities directly at the point of care.”
— Ashok Prabhu Masilamani, CTO and Founder, Noze Inc.
Noze Inc.
Noze is a Montreal-based medical technology startup redefining disease detection by unlocking the power of breath. Leveraging its proprietary, AI-powered “nose-on-a-chip,” Noze captures and decodes the molecular biomarker fingerprints made up of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in exhaled breath, transforming them into real-time clinical insights.
Designed for point-of-care deployment, Noze’s platform is advancing a new class of non-invasive, low-cost diagnostics across a range of applications, including cancer, respiratory conditions, and infectious diseases. Backed by strategic collaborations with organizations such as NASA and the Gates Foundation, Noze is pioneering the universal breath panel – enabling instantaneous, decentralized screening across diseases, at global scale.
No needles. No swabs. No waiting. Just diagnosis, reimagined.
Project Metrics
Noze Inc.
Project
Development of high-resolution, scalable silicon aroma sensor for healthcare applications
Targeted Industry/ies
Medtech
Healthcare / Biotech
Type
Product Development
Awarded
May 2026
Location
Saint-Laurent
QC
Funding
$524,144